EDMONTON, AB--(Marketwire - December 11, 2007) - The world's automotive makers are on the crest
of one of the biggest industry waves in decades. With increasing product
variety, auto makers today face the demanding challenge of efficiently
scheduling the assembly of thousands of different product configurations.
At the same time global brands must fulfill each order with faster delivery
times and yet keep the operation lean.

To address these challenges, some of the world's top auto makers use
Optessa MLS, to effectively optimize and balance auto assembly planning,
sequencing and scheduling across all product lines and constraints. Optessa
Inc. today announced the next generation of the Optessa Multi-Line
Scheduling (MLS) solution. Optessa MLS 4.2 introduces a key capability to
model and schedule, in a single application of the system, multiple lines
in a plant at different tiers. Enhanced usability enables mapping of the
workflows of a typical assembly operation. The new version is built around
a distributed architecture for scalability, load balancing and faster
computation to solve large scheduling problems.

"Proper sequencing and scheduling is the critical link between an order and
its execution. But the competitive environment and increasing product
variety have made the problem very complex. The problem represents the
balance between demand, capacity and the supply chain," said Vasu
Netrakanti, Chief Executive Officer of Optessa. "Optessa technology has
been proven in the largest and most reputed global manufacturing
corporations. The system can solve the extremely complex sequencing and
scheduling problems faced by high volume manufacturers."

"In the past, OEMs wrote their own sequencing and scheduling software. Now,
OEMs have much more complex requirements and are also willing to purchase
packaged solutions. No other packaged solutions have been identified for
automotive assembly line sequencing, and Optessa has a wide market window
for entry," said Ralph Rio, Research Director Production Management
solutions, ARC Advisory Group.

Optessa MLS helps auto manufacturers optimize and smooth assembly planning
and scheduling so that OEMs can more effectively fulfill customer demand.
Optessa MLS achieves this through its unique features:

-- Superior schedules -- Optessa MLS provides an optimized, smoothed and
evenly favorable schedule for every part and every model months in advance.
-- Fast optimization engine -- Optessa MLS uses modern stochastic search
techniques to find a near optimal schedule rapidly, e.g. it can solve large
problems of four million unit-rules -- sequencing 20,000 units against 200
rules -- in minutes. And the output is a global optimal rather than just a
local optimal solution.
-- Highly maintainable application -- plant staff can easily add new
rules/constraints and schedules can be rapidly regenerated with new inputs
rather than starting from scratch. A Web-based application, Optessa MLS can
be implemented in any environment in as little as twelve weeks, and has
built-in capabilities to simplify integration with third-party scheduling,
SCM and ERP solutions.

Optessa has enabled leading auto makers to address the challenges of
increasingly tighter delivery schedules as they move from a push to a pull,
lean manufacturing environment. The immediate business benefits of the
Optessa approach include: reduced manufacturing cost of goods sold (COGS);
smoother production; increased plant through-put; reduced inventories of
finished goods and work in process (WIP); and reduced planning and
re-planning cycle times. Over the long term, Optessa MLS helps auto makers
reduce order-to-delivery lead-time; significantly reduce supply costs; and
support a truly flexible manufacturing environment.

"High-volume assembly line scheduling is a fundamentally different problem
than what most advanced production schedulers are designed to solve.
Beyond availability of resources and changeovers, this environment
requires many complex rules to reflect significant interdependencies that
limit production sequence. Optessa has solved this from plantwide planning
down to automated buffers, a boon for moving to truly demand-driven
operations," according to Julie Fraser, Principal Analyst at Industry
Directions Inc.

Optessa MLS 4.2 provides several new capabilities, including:

-- Generic Feeder Line -- Optessa MLS can model in-plant feeder lines or
sub-lines through MLS system configurations. As a result, Optessa MLS
can model and schedule all tiers and lines within a given plant in a
single system.
-- Distributed architecture -- Enterprises can deploy multiple
optimization engines to tackle large processing loads,
significantly enhancing performance when it's needed.
-- Enhanced usability -- The interface features a new menu structure and
workflow-based design to make it easier for plant staff to create new
scenarios, access existing ones, modify constraints and incorporate
constraint data from third-party systems.
-- Constraint enhancements -- Optessa MLS now incorporates powerful new
constraint types that are critical to the scheduling and sequencing
process. A "Constraint Time Window" feature allows specific rules to be
turned ON or OFF at selected time intervals. A new "Lag Attribute"
feature allows specific rules to be applied only to subsequences (e.g.,
rules applied across the subsequence of a single model, ignoring other
models). As well as enhanced "Smoothing" and "Ramping" constraints, and
an all new "Locking" feature.

"The improved usability, performance, sequence quality, and architecture of
Optessa MLS v4.2 will allow any user, in any environment, at any process,
to develop better quality sequences in less time," said Ashok Erramilli,
Chief Technical Officer of Optessa.

Optessa Inc. is an emerging leader in scheduling and sequencing
optimization software for high volume manufacturers. Optessa offers the
only software solution that can effectively optimize assembly planning,
sequencing and scheduling across all of a manufacturer's product lines and
constraints. It solves these complex problems through a unique combination
of modern optimization techniques based on patent pending algorithms and
extensive domain knowledge. Optessa's customers include some of the
largest, global brand manufacturing companies, and its platform is designed
to solve the needs of companies in automotive, semiconductor and other high
volume discrete manufacturing environments. To learn more about Optessa,
please visit www.optessa.com.